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| | Araks military spacecraft |
 | | According to NPO Lavochkin's official history, (118) the project, which led to Cosmos-2344, started in mid-1980s with the development of a multi-mission platform "based on the Arkon satellite." The original secret mission of the spacecraft has not been described in this source; instead, NPO Lavochkin listed the Arkon among the platforms available for commercial applications. |
 | | According to Lavochkin, the Arkon's high-altitude orbit, which stunned independent observers of Cosmos-2344, allows the satellite to scan wide areas on the surface of the Earth, and to cover the same regions during different orbital passes, as well as to look at the same targets from different angles. |
 | | Even though NPO Lavochkin identified Cosmos-2344 as the Arkon, this is apparently a "marketing" name of the platform, which is applied to a civilian reincarnation of the spacecraft. |
| www.russianspaceweb.com /araks.html (1002 words) |
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